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It seems to me that there has been a significant shift in the Community’s culture over the last twenty years. Two decades ago the culture was permeated by the ideas of esoteric philosophy and by people who worked in trained and careful ways with various energies. At the same time the major angelic focus was in the garden and landscape. Since then the folk into esoterics have been replaced by folk who are more mystically or psychologically inclined, so in the 1990s there is more of a focus on consciousness.

Awareness of the garden devas remains part of the background culture but there is not much exact and specific work with them – though instinctively the gardeners have a very sophisticated relationship with them. At the same time, partly because of the language of the Transformation Game, people often talk about angels—of beauty, harmony, humour and so on. These Angels of particular qualities are very general and perhaps romantic, but they have expanded people’s awareness to include realms other than just the devas of nature. I think that this expansion of focus is very creative, for any student or worker with angels knows that angelic lives are part of every aspect of earthly, human and cosmic life. Every aspect of life is permeated by devic essence as much as it is by atomic electro-magnetic dynamics.

What is not so good perhaps is that Community members have tended not to study this angelic realm carefully. Maybe this has been a sensible caution against flakiness. Maybe Community members generally do not really believe in the angelic realm, but go along with it in the same way that it is fine to go along with fairy tales and Jungian archetypes. But the reality is—and it is taught in all mystical, tribal and esoteric traditions—that there is a world of parallel beings who co-operate with and are involved in every part and aspect of life. Even in Christianity, the central ceremony of the Eucharist or Communion both recognises and calls in these beings: “. . . with Seraphim, Cherubim, Angels, Archangels and all the company of heaven.”

In other ceremonies and workings, the elementals of Earth, Water, Air and Fire, as well as the devas of landscape—including Pan—are invoked for active co-operation. In classical Greece and Rome, for example, it was well understood that we needed to be in harmonious relationship with this parallel world. Every home had a small altar dedicated to the angel of the house; schools, hospitals, theatres, parliaments, all had altars and ceremonies to work with the overlighting angelic consciousnesses. Tribal societies are also full of ceremonies that call in the co-operation of the devas and angels to help make horticulture or tool making or journeys harmonious and successful.

My hope is that over the next decade within the Foundation and the wider Findhorn Community, the pendulum will swing back to some central place and the folk who are aligned with consciousness and the mystical will begin to appreciate the value and joy of a more exact knowledge and a more practically co-operative attitude with the angelic realms.

The basic principles are very simple. We need to recognise that devas hold in their consciousness the archetypal pattern or blueprint for every form in existence, whether it is a flower, a thoughtform, a planet, a person. This blueprint is an energy matrix that contains a map of the perfect potential into which any form can evolve. A fairy, for example, holds the perfect matrix for its flower to grow into. Working consciously and co-operatively, human beings can attune to this perfect matrix—in gardening, healing, creating, cleaning and so on—and thus attune their own actions more gracefully and creatively to the work. At the same time, the devic consciousness responds to the creativity and intention of the human consciousness. From an esoteric perspective, a co-operative relationship with the devic realms is as important as ecological awareness and the balancing of female-male.

Understanding that angels contain within their energy field—like Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance—the perfect blueprint of a certain form, then we can see, for instance, that the Angel of Cluny[1] is an angel with a history of working with education and community in a spiritual framework. A healing angel, then, is a consciousness that holds within its matrix the pattern for a perfect healing; the healer attunes to this angelic consciousness and is facilitated through the actual process of healing.

Some individuals in the Community understand and know all this in a very instinctive and intuitive way. It might be useful, however, in the coming years if this instinct and intuition were allowed to ground in a more intentional way.

What might this look like? I am not sure. Perhaps an informal discussion or meditation group. Perhaps a group that monitors angelic activity in the Sanctuaries, gardens, education departments, kitchens, power points and so on. Simply giving these realities grounded awareness is enough to create a co-operative and stimulating relationship. Like all inner practices, however, the only guarantee of accuracy, wisdom and lack of projection, is in a sustained and rhythmic discipline of awareness.

Djwahl Khul wrote somewhere that to be a balanced seeker requires that if we are mystics, we balance ourselves by becoming occultists; and if we are occultists, we balance ourselves by becoming mystics. This, of course, is one of the interesting paradoxes of practical esoterics: we need to surrender to a state of blissful oceanic consciousness; but we also need to be focused and aware. Neptune and Uranus marry.
In relation to the devic realms, the tendency within the Community over the last decade has been Neptunian, relaxed and sensuous. This is healthy and beautiful. To balance it with an approach that is Uranian, electric and focused is also healthy and beautiful.

May the overlighting Angel of Findhorn feel our awareness and bless us all.

[1] i.e. Cluny Hill College